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This feat just seems weird to me. You attack with your primary hand then toss your weapon to your secondary hand and use it again? Huh? So what were you using your off-hand weapon for all this time? Balance? I guess I've just always thought of primary and off-hand weapon attacks as being kind a back-and-forth thing or not occurring in any particular order at all. This feat makes it seem like you do your two primary attacks, then your two off-hand attacks - slash, slash, poke, poke. And now you can do a slash, slash, toss, slash, slash. Weird. Weird-lame.
And where does your off-hand weapon go? If you drop it, why did you even bother drawing it in the first place? If you swap it to your used-up primary hand, you're juggling in the middle of combat. REALLY weird-lame.
I don't totally get this feat either, unless the point is to imitate Inigo Montoya and Westley dueling in the Princess Bride. ("I'm not left-handed either.")
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I don't totally get this feat either, unless the point is to imitate Inigo Montoya and Westley dueling in the Princess Bride. ("I'm not left-handed either.")
I think it was the get around for the Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting from Complete Adventurer (iirc), so you can get your longsword damage over your off-hand shortsword without taking the extra penalties.
To get more attacks. I read it as you don't actually have two weapons when you use this feat, you have one. You make all your attacks with your primary hand then switch hands. You then make your remaining off-hand attacks.
I like this feat, but it's doesn't seem based in realty. I've just never seen a real life sword fighter get a flurry of attacks by switching weapon hands.
Perhaps the only weapons this feat makes sense with is the nunchuku, or spiked chain.
Clearly your PC becomes a juggler of knives when they take the feat.
I don't know whether it makes sense in terms of what the wielder is actually doing in battle. I don't think that what would really be happening would be you taking 1-3 attacks and then switching and then taking 1-3 attacks with the other hand, but for game purposes it's easier to roll it that way. What you would probably actually do is constantly switch hands.
In any case, it seems pretty useful. You get around the requirement for your off-handed weapon to be light and you don't have to invest in an offhand weapon to get power comparable to your main weapon. Your Rapier of Mighty Poking +3 can be used for all your 2-weapon attacks.
Or course, the rapier is kind of an unlikely weapon for these purposes, with the guard getting in the way of tossing it around, but a nice gladius or nunchucks, as Jank Falcon suggested. Based on the sword guy from the market scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, I could easily visualize somebody pulling this off with a saber or scimitar. Likewise, given the Mad Martigan style from Willow I can see this happening even with a bastard sword.
My problem with this feat is the rogue: many optimized rogues us the two weapon tree and so no now save thousands upon thousands of gp im magic weapon costs because they only have to enchant 1 weapon as the off hand weapo can be made of flint for all you care with this feat.
Or they could take the other Pathfinder two-weapon combat feats that can't be used in conjunction with this one, but are also really, really good.
Wow, they save ... gp. Game-breaking.
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I read it as you don't actually have two weapons when you use this feat, you have one. You make all your attacks with your primary hand then switch hands. You then make your remaining off-hand attacks.
I think that would be a more sensible feat, Jank Falcon, but unfortunately, that's not how I read the description. "With an acrobatic twist, you can swap your weapons from one hand to another."
I think you need to have "weapons" for this to work. Which, yes, makes it easier to shift your main weapon to your off-hand if you are simultaneously shifitng your secondary weapon to your good hand.
And, for those not on the Wizards boards, this is one of the Pathfinder feats being held up for ridicule over there.
Or they could take the other Pathfinder two-weapon combat feats that can't be used in conjunction with this one, but are also really, really good.
Wow, they save ... gp. Game-breaking.
I didn't say gamebreaking, so save your sarcasm.
It isn't a feat that I would ban outright.Wealth/level is a balance mechanism under d20... so if you you a 15 level rogue should have around 200,000gp in wealth. So a 50,00gp weapon isn't out of the question at that level... this feat if applied to a 50k gp weapon similiar to having two seperate 50k gp weapons for a character that uses two weapons so with the 50k gp that you didnt spend on a second weapon you have raised your expected resources from wealth by 25%. That's point one.
Point two is the rougue itself which I think is slightly overpowered (and I do mean slightly and it's just my opinion). So I feel a slightly overpowered rogue (optimized) using this feat becomes moderately unbalanced because of the increase in wealth resources it gives him.
So to reitterate my first post: my problem with this feat is in conjunction with an optimized rogue. It's not as big a problem as let's say the old polymorph rules in my eyes but it isn't well balanced.
I don't think the feat is as a big a deal in the hands of another character class for various reasons specific to each class(of course, saving final comment on ranger until it comes out but they'ld have to change the ranger quite a bit).
It is a combat feat, though. You can't use any other combat feat while you're using it. A problem with rogues being overpowered is a problem with rogue, and not with this feat. I won't argue that there's a problem with rogues at the moment.
The "Combat Trick" rogue talent turns their adorable little Rogue Abilities into Fighter Feats With more Options, which isn't a good move if they're going to get them so often (every second level).
The thing about combat feats is that you have to look at the other combat feats that you're "losing out on" by using this one all the time - and if you aren't using it all the time, then you're going to want to have a second weapon that doesn't suck, otherwise there two weapon feats don't quite "pay for themselves."
It is a combat feat, though. You can't use any other combat feat while you're using it. A problem with rogues being overpowered is a problem with rogue, and not with this feat. I won't argue that there's a problem with rogues at the moment.
The "Combat Trick" rogue talent turns their adorable little Rogue Abilities into Fighter Feats With more Options, which isn't a good move if they're going to get them so often (every second level).The thing about combat feats is that you have to look at the other combat feats that you're "losing out on" by using this one all the time - and if you aren't using it all the time, then you're going to want to have a second weapon that doesn't suck, otherwise there two weapon feats don't quite "pay for themselves."
I don't see the pont of taking this feat unless you are going to use it alot... again a rogue optimized to use two-weapon tree would unbalance this feat... so since that is just a specific concern about one class you will notice I have not said this feat needs to be removed. Just bringing up that specific concern which isn't all that big of a deal.
And you need a combat feat for when your moving (in which case you are usually only getting a main hand attack anyway).
Doing all your main-hand attacks, *then* all your off-hand attacks is for the ease of rolling. The feat's fluff says that you switch it back and forth between hands between each attack. There's a number of ways to picture this.
Personally, I have to question the existence of this Feat at all. It seems to allow a warrior to use their primary weapon in their secondary hand, thus allowing them to make all two-weapon attacks with the same weapon, circumventing some of the normal rules ofr two-weapon fighting. My question is this: How would such an ability even exist? I'm sorry, but we can discuss balance vs. imbalance issues but an ability that breaks my suspension of disbelief along these lines is ruining the game for me. I'm not saying that the whole game is crap because of the one feat, but I am saying that every time that feat would be used it would break the experience for me and I'd have to get back into it, and that's true if I was the DM or the player.
It just doesn't make sense that a warrior would, as their default kata, strike three times with his or her primary weapon while holding off with the second, then switch to the second and strike twice while holding off with the first. There are a couple of combat situations that occur to me in which that might seem to be an optimal choice, but two-weapon fighting is either a "twirl of canes" or a "dance of blades" to me, and this Feat puts a lie to both of those concepts.
As has been mentioned, the sequence of all primary, then secondary attacks is for fluff.
My question is why does this "fluff" break your experience, but it's okay to visualize two warriors fighting where one makes an attack, then stands there for 6 seconds waiting for the other warrior to take a swing? Stricktly speaking by the text if a character gets one attack per round, that is what they are doing, but I think most people fill in the "fluff" area and imaging the combatants making jabs, clashing swords, etc. but only making damaging contact once per round.
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"with an acrobatic twist..." (emphasis: singular)
As I read the feat, I am confused about where the weapons are at the end of the PC's turn. Have the weapons, in fact, switched hands?
If the PC wants to perform an Attack of Opportunity before her next action, does she need to decide whethr to attack with her off-hand or with her secondary weapon?
When the PC begins her next round, does she take all of her attacks with her secondary weapon?
As I read it, that's certainly how I'd rule it. All attacks with primary weapon on round 1, all attacks with secondary weapon on round 2, at which point they reset. (And this justifies why you can't do weapon swap if your off-hand is empty; you need something to attack with on round 2.)
I guess I just see the feat working slightly differently than it is actually worded. For example, while fighting, I duck under a the barbarian's swinging axe, quickly shift my weapon to my off hand, and catch him in his exposed side. Then I switch hands again while he is recovering from his missed attack, and make a strike with my primary hand.
In other words, I see the feat allowing you to swap the weapon back and forth between your hands during the timeframe of the combat round. It doesn't really matter to me if you make all your attacks with your primary hand first, then your secondary hand, just like it doesn't matter which attack you make first when fighting with two weapons (since I'm sure you don't really hit with both weapons at the exact same time everytime like some sort of pincher attack).
If the authors want to re-word it, fine. But otherwise I can draw my own conclusions of how it might work during a fantasy combat session and not have to follow it word-for-word.
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As a note, technically, either hand is your primary hand, D&D doesn't distinguish between those who are south paw and those who aren't. So just because you've switched hands, as long as you have a light and a one handed weapon(or two light ones) then you don't take any additional penalties and can attack with the heavier weapon as your primary again, even if its in your other hand.
I think that this feat is really fun for flavor reasons(the princess bride reference mentioned above, but even just the idea of a duelist tossing his blade up and catching it with his other hand to show off and confusing his enemy), and is powerful due to its ability to allow someone to have a single magical item that is pumped up and be used in both hands.
However it does have two big drawbacks I can see. One has been mentioned above: Its a combat feat, so that means no other combat feats in the same round.
The second? It doesn't change the rules for two weapon fighting, so if you are making both your primary and secondary attacks with a weapon, that had better be a light weapon or else you are going to take greater penalties for it. This means you are stuck using a worse weapon then you might otherwise.
Now, with that said, I can see other ways of taking advantage(for instance, if you dropped a feat on exotic weapon prof. Sawtooth Sabre from CotCC players guide then you effectively are dual wielding longswords, but that takes a feat) or something scary like a dervish with scimitars and this(but thats a splat book which can't really be accounted for, plus I've already seen a scout/dervish/tempest that was a nightmare on wheels. If you want to go ridiculous two weapon fighting you already can.)
-Tarlane